Poco
Seven

THE REVIEW

This is the album by the Californians Poco, which sees them reduced to a quartet due to the defection of the founding member, main singer, and songwriter Ritchie Furay. He was convinced by his manager to try his luck in another brand-new country rock formation called Souther/Hillman/Furay Band. This contraction in personnel is primarily resolved by extending the responsibilities of the group's virtuosic instrumentalist, that is, guitarist/banjoist/mandolinist and pedal steel guitar specialist Rusty Young, who from this moment is also active behind the microphone and as a composer.

For now, Rusty gives just a taste of his new duties: he participates in the choirs as the fourth voice and composes only one of the eight tracks on the lineup, the joyful choral and instrumental bluegrass "Rocky Mountain Breakdown," but the future will hold much more weight and centrality of role in Poco for him... he will indeed become the main composer and the definitive frontman. However, on "Seven," these responsibilities are still almost entirely the remit of the other guitarist Paul Cotton and the long-haired bassist Tim Schmit.

In this record, Paul Cotton is definitely in great shape. His inspiration surpasses that of his companions on this occasion, making the fresh renunciation of Furay more than acceptable. Cotton signs half of the present tracks (four out of eight), all noteworthy and with particular praise to at least two of them: I refer to the semi-bossanova "Faith In The Families," sung and played with pure class on the point of an acoustic guitar, and the highly lyrical "Angel," the pinnacle of the work by virtue of its evocative and intense melody resting on memorable guitar arpeggios.

The other two contributions from the singer and guitarist native of Alabama are at the beginning and end of the album: "Drivin' Wheel" at the start is curiously opened to the singing of the first stanza by the group's drummer George Grantham and represents the most rockish episode of the batch, while the closure "You've Got Your Reasons" is a weighty slow love song, laden with saccharine through a pompous orchestra and, in addition, slightly alienated by an adventurous and idiosyncratic guitar solo, held in an emphatic style not exactly in the strings of a musician as dry and essential as Cotton. It is probably the classic case where production has taken a little too much control, partially compromising the quality of a good piece.

The tenor and well-trained voice of Timothy Schmit, here still in the "poor" phase of his career three years and three albums before reaching the glory of the Eagles, shines in his "Just Call My Name," "Skatin'," and "Krikkit's Song," cited in the order of appearance in the lineup. The best is the second one, sleek and robust (by country rock standards) while the other two, quite lightweight, actually constitute the only weak moments of the record. The vocal timbre of the Californian bassist, not sufficiently intense and powerful to make him an effective frontman, is instead a godsend in terms of choral harmonies, and his parts make Poco's backing vocals among the best in the rock field. After all, there are dozens and dozens of productions in which the available Tim has chimed in as a welcome guest in the choirs... some names? Toto, Steely Dan, Bob Seger, Boz Scaggs... even Crosby Stills & Nash, who theoretically shouldn't have needed it.

"Seven" is the seventh album by Poco (any doubts?) out of the fifteen or so commercially released in their career starting from 1969. It was released in 1974 and still today sounds like a gutsy record, deep, dynamic, and melodious, among their best.